In Georgia, the criminal investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis into attempts after the last presidential election to secure another term for Trump despite his loss is continuing. Now, the prosecutor has revealed that at least one individual who participated as a faked elector for Trump after that race has implicated at least one other from the same group in alleged criminal acts.
Relatedly, Willis has asked for the disqualification of the lawyer for ten fake electors (other than David Shafer, who chairs the state GOP). She raised concerns about what was apparently the failure of that lawyer, Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow, to actually raise the prospect of an immunity deal with clients of hers last year when the topic previously came up in court proceedings.
As for the sham elector implicating another in the group, Willis didn’t provide details in a publicly available court filing about potentially provable crimes in which the latter had been implicated, but she argued that Debrow could no longer provide adequate legal representation to individuals now with competing interests, whether in bolstering their own testimony or defending against the accusations in those answers. Willis also argued against Debrow further participating in the case in any capacity, as confidential information she’d gathered in the course of representing either side of the dispute — whether in representing an individual who made the accusations or the accused — would need to be protected.
“The issue of representation of the current status quo of Ms. Debrow representing 10 of the electors has reached an “impracticable and ethical mess,” as events in the past week have shown,” Willis’s filing said. “On April 12, 2023 and April 14, 2023, members of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office interviewed certain of the electors represented by Ms. Debrow, with Ms. Debrow in attendance. During these interviews, some of the electors stated that another elector represented by Ms. Debrow committed acts that are violations of Georgia law and that they were not party to these additional acts. Additionally, in these interviews, some of the electors represented by Ms. Debrow told members of the investigation team that no potential offer of immunity was ever brought to them in 2022, which is in direct conflict with Ms. Debrow’s co-counsel Ms. Pierson’s representation to this Court in August, 2022.”
No criminal charges have yet emerged in direct connection to Willis’s ongoing investigation, although Trump himself appeared to have initially vastly misunderstood the nature of portions of a special grand jury’s report released publicly. Those materials didn’t comprise even nearly the entirety of the document, although Trump was glib he wasn’t mentioned anyway! Trump hasn’t been named as formally a target of the Willis probe, according to publicly available info. Having such a status would suggest a special possibility of charges, although they’re still possible.
